in reply to Object functionality?

Every project normally starts out with a thorough study of application specifications and design. Provided design is done properly, you shouldn’t have to deal with such issues as ‘multi-purpose’ modules that are nothing but a ‘package’ crammed with as much functionality as only possible. Modules (in Perl specifically) inherently should serve the purpose of separating one piece of functionality from the rest of your program. Not to mention advantages of software reuse.. but that’s a different subject anyways ;).

I have found a number of posts made by other monks that speak to this affect:
  1. Thoughts On Object-Oriented Module Design. Input Sought.
  2. Coming up with code design
There’s also a good book that I might suggest you look into for ideas on proper software design:

Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, Third Edition

"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels." -- Confession of Faith

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Re: Re: Object functionality?
by demerphq (Chancellor) on May 10, 2002 at 14:06 UTC
    Recently while working on Text::Quote and Data::BFDump I came across this debate as well. There are unfortunately more sides to it than you post here.

    For instance, I want to have certain functionality that another module has, but I dont want my module unusable if they dont have that module. What to do? Farm it out if the other is there but fallback to a local implementation? Completely use your own and remove the dependency?

    Also sometimes you need features of other mdules in your module. Do you then go on to expose those features through your own interface or force the user to use two seperate objects?

    I have to say that I have gone both ways, sometimes exposing the functions sometimes not. I think this is one of the areas where the "Art" of rpogramming comes in. Some people seem to know just exactly where to draw the line, others do not. Unfortunately im one of the later.

    But having siad that I would say that the rule from cooking probably applies: too much seasoning can spoil the soup.

    Yves / DeMerphq
    ---
    Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.